WASHINGTON -- The United Nations envoy for freedom of expression is drafting an official communication to the U.S. government demanding to know why federal officials are not protecting the rights of Occupy demonstrators whose protests are being disbanded -- sometimes violently -- by local authorities.

Frank La Rue, who serves as the U.N. "special rapporteur" for the protection of free expression, told HuffPost in an interview that the crackdowns against Occupy protesters appear to be violating their human and constitutional rights.

"I believe in city ordinances and I believe in maintaining urban order," he said Thursday. "But on the other hand I also believe that the state -- in this case the federal state -- has an obligation to protect and promote human rights."

An interesting thing which has been born out of the OWS protests has been the Human Microphone. Because several cities have outlawed the use of loudspeakers for communication in public (some only just as recently as the OWS protests started...shocking), people have taken to using the human mic, which involves two shourts of 'mic check' followed by everyone repeating what the speaker says, so that the whole group can hear them. The best thing has been OWS using the human mic at various speaking events to voice their opinion:

On a humorous note, Egypt was recently criticized for how they're treating their protesters (pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets). Their response? "We are within our rights. Look at how you treat your Occupy protesters."

Here's a video of the most recent pepper-spraying incident in UC davis. The officers reason for pepper-spraying a bunch of kids sitting on the floor? They felt "threatened"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4

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